After playing Call of Duty for many years, I’ve come to understand how important certain aspects of the series are, one of them being your in-game perks. Whether it be Marathon, Lightweight, Siterep or even Hacker, each one serves its purpose to make your gaming sessions a lot easier. However, it might have even gotten to the point where these perks are a bit overpowered and make the daily grind on the battlefield way too easy. Developer Treyarch has noticed this and are looking to simplify the system in Call of Duty: Black Ops II and if that involves nerfing some perks along the way … so be it.

Black Ops II will be different, but will it be better?

Multiplayer head developer David Vondehaar took time from his hectic schedule to talk to CVG about the subject and gave the skinny on how they plan to adjust perks in Black Ops II so players don’t rely so heavily on them. An excerpt from the interview read:

Perks were pretty important for us to rethink, because they were getting too complex. You had perks, perk pros, perks that influence you, perks that influence your gun, perks that influence team mates.

We’ve simplified that so perks only ever affect your character, and more importantly, Black Ops II’s perks aren’t absolutes. In Black Ops our only balancing options were to remove the perk or keep it – now we can tune any perk by increments to nerf it or improve it.

Vondehaar also talked about how balance is important and clarified that he’s not afraid to bite the bullet and nerf perks to get everything on the same level.

I can nerf perks and I will, mark my words. A perk should never be something you need just to compete. A perk is ‘I got a parking spot,’ or ‘the soda machine gave me free soda.’ Your life shouldn’t depend on it. The community helped me understand that, and that’s why our new system has no absolutes. We can try to make it the most balanced CoD ever.

I for one welcome the change to the perk system, getting rid of excess baggage will only add a fresher multiplayer experience. This will no doubt add a higher degree of difficulty though, so make sure your ready for battle when Black Ops II hits stores for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii U in November.

Are you happy with the change to the perk system? Let us know in the comment section below and make sure to check out our Facebook Page for more of today’s gaming news.

When not fighting crime, I dabble in the art of online journalism. Alright, maybe it's not as exciting as headbutting everyday felons like a modern Bruce Wayne, but I need something that doesn't involve bludgeoning something. Get my kicks playing on a fat 80gb PS3, really need an upgrade......and a shave.